When hundreds of thousands of Catholics gathered in Rome yesterday (Sunday) for the
beatification of Pope John Paul II, not everyone was celebrating.
For the victims of sexual abuse by predatory priests, the ceremony — a
major step towards sainthood — is too much too soon for a Pontiff they
say failed to adequately confront the crimes committed by members of his
church.
"It's the rubbing of salt into the already deep and still fresh
wounds of thousands of victims," says David Clohessy, national director
of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
"The signal that
his beatification basically sends to church employees across the globe
is that no matter how many children are harmed because of your inaction,
your clerical career won't suffer."
Nobody denies the accomplishments of the famously charismatic pope,
who died in 2005: his confrontation of the Soviet Union, his travels in
the name of evangelism, and his courage under the ravages of Parkinson's
diseases.
But when it came to confronting the rot within his own
institution, says Clohessy, the late pope was all but absent: "In his
more than 25 years as the world's most powerful religious figure, we
can't think of a single predatory priest or complicit bishop who
experienced any consequences whatsoever for committing or concealing
heinous child sex crimes."
For much of John Paul's papacy, the church's sex abuse crisis bubbled
mostly underground.
But when it did break through the surface, the
pope's response was most noticeable for its absence.
Hans Hermann Groer,
an Austrian cardinal accused of abusing more than 2,000 boys over
several decades, was made to retire as bishop of Vienna when the scandal
broke in 1995, but was never punished or forced to apologize. (Groer
died in 2003.)
The Mexican priest Marcial Maciel Degollado continued to
receive John Paul's support after allegations emerged in the late 1990s
that he had abused seminarians.
"Time and again, John Paul simply refused to take the hard decisive
steps that a visionary leader would take," says Jason Berry, author of Render unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church,
and two books on the sex abuse scandal.
"The way he responded to the
accusations against Father Maciel by basically ignoring them, acting as
if they didn't even exist, is not only a sign of a terrible denial on
his part, but also an unwillingness to confront the full impact of
evil."
Maciel remained unpunished until after the John Paul's death in
2005, when Benedict XVI ordered him to leave the ministry for "a life of
penitence and prayer."
Maciel died in 2008.
John Paul's admirers acknowledge that the pope could have done more,
but they say that his failings during the sex abuse scandal fail to
blot out his greater virtues.
"Do I think he could have done better?"
says Phil Lawler editor of CatholicCulture.org.
"Yes. But the idea that
all of it comes home to roost at the Vatican is an idea that I've never
found persuasive. He was in a position where he had limited options and
limited power. If you consider the man's whole life as a body, that's in
the negative column, and there's so much in the positive column."
John Paul II's accelerated path to sainthood — beatification usually
takes decades — means that the late pope is being honored even as his
legacy regarding his handling of the sex abuse case continues to be
examined.
A report by the Irish government is expected next month on
recent failures by the church to confront sexual abuse in the rural
diocese of Cloyne.
The bishop in charge during the period under
examination previously served as a private secretary to three popes,
including John Paul II.
The Polish pope's ascent toward canonization can be compared to
another papal candidacy for sainthood.
Pope Pius XII was also revered
during his lifetime, but has since become a much more controversial
figure for his public silence in the face of the Holocaust.
More than 50
years after his death, he remains on the path towards sainthood, but
his case the process faces increasing opposition and he has not yet been
beatified.
"I don't think that John Paul was ever taken to full account
by the news media during the last decade of his life," says Berry.
"Hagiography at this point is premature at best and at worst an insult
to the many people who have been harmed. There's a good chance it could
backfire."